Tuesday 9 August 2016

CB Summer Bubble Grows.



Baltic Dry Index. 636 – unch.     Brent Crude 44.96

LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000.  Revised due to QE programs.

All news is back to good news again, as the central banksters’ great summer bubble continues to inflate.  In the latest iteration of the great fiat money from nothing folly, OPEC is going to informally meet in late September to cut back production to hand market share to Iran and those US frackers that haven’t declared bankruptcy.
Well in an age where Brexit was supposed to trigger the end of European civilisation and initiate the start of World War Three, according to everyone from President Obama and Dodgy Dave Cameron, down to the Hockey Puck presently in charge of the once serious Bank of England, anything’s possible I suppose, however unlikely. But the fact remains that six weeks on from John Bull voting to discharge himself from the insane asylum aka the EUSSR, not a single bankster has fled London for Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, or Zurich, and no economy anywhere on the planet is following the predicted dire Brexit script.
Below, all news is good news in the 2016 silly season version of the central banksters summer bubble. 

Asian stocks mostly up despite weak economic news from China

Published: Aug 8, 2016 11:47 p.m. ET

Uninspiring numbers on China’s commodity imports, consumer inflation

Asian shares traded in positive territory Tuesday as gains in commodity stocks helped offset weakness overnight in U.S. markets.

The Nikkei Stock Average NIK, +0.47%   rose 0.2% with the S&P/ASX 200 XJO, +0.15%    up 0.2% and Korea’s Kospi SEU, +0.53%   up 0.3%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI, -0.19%   was down 0.1% while the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, +0.29%   was flat.

Traders sent U.S. oil prices up 2.9% to $43.02 a barrel following news that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries planned to hold informal talks in September that could lead to production cuts.

ANZ Research said traders shrugged off the disappointing China July crude import data and were focusing on the OPEC meeting, lifting sentiment for commodities prices generally.

“China’s weak commodity imports data had little impact on prices, with investors focused on positive economic data in the G-8. The strong rise in oil prices should support the wider sector today,” ANZ said.

China’s crude imports in July fell to a six-month low on slowing demand from small independent refiners.
“China’s July trade data released yesterday further underscored the improved global demand for commodities,” said IG market analyst Angus Nicholson, adding that the volume of copper and iron ore imported by China continued to grow at strong levels in July.

In China, consumer inflation moderated for a third month in a row in July, well within the government’s comfort zone. China’s consumer-price index climbed 1.8% in July from a year earlier, compared with a 1.9% increase in June.

July’s rise was in line with market expectations, with Beijing planning to cap consumer inflation at 3% this year. Tuesday’s data showed that the central bank doesn’t have to worry on the price front, at least for now, as it seeks to manage interest rates and the yuan rate.

“Coal and steel prices picked up significantly on speculation that increased government spending on infrastructure projects will lift demand for hard commodities,” said Zhou Hao, senior emerging markets economist for Asia at Commerzbank AG.

Elsewhere, preliminary data from South Korea’s finance ministry showed retail sales continued to pick up.
Sales at the country’s top department stores rose 10.5% in July from a year earlier after the previous month’s 13.5% gain. Sales at leading discount-store chains rose 5.8% in July from a year ago after a 2.9% rise in the preceding month. The trade ministry will release confirmed July retail-sales data later this month.
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Oil market déjà vu sets in as OPEC plans ‘informal’ meeting

Published: Aug 8, 2016 4:10 p.m. ET
Traders can’t shake off a sense of déjà vu following an oil futures rally Monday that appeared to be inspired by major producing countries’ plans to discuss ways to stabilize the market.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Monday said members will hold an “informal meeting” on the sidelines of the 15th International Energy Forum in Algeria on Sept. 26 to Sept. 28.
But this isn’t the first time OPEC has promised to talk about restoring stability and order to the oil market. After all, major oil producers failed to reach a pact to freeze production levels at a meeting in Doha, Qatar earlier this year.
Oddly enough, the Monday rally was largely attributed to the meeting announcement, which was the final sentence of a press release that detailed comments from the cartel’s president, Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada.

“You would think that the bulls would approach this being ‘once bitten, twice shy’—but from recent price action, the market once again appears to be making much ado about nothing,” said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData.
West Texas Intermediate CLU6, -0.86%  and Brent LCOV6, -0.90%  crude-oil futures settled at their highest levels in roughly two weeks on Monday.
----“Market participants have also become extremely bearish as can be seen in the recent [Commodity Futures Trading Commission Commitment of Traders] Report,” he told MarketWatch. “As such, this price-bullish news could also have forced speculative traders out of short positions, exacerbating the moves higher for crude-oil prices.”
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OPEC Still Faces the Same Obstacles to Agreeing Oil-Output Limit

August 8, 2016 — 7:39 PM BST Updated on August 9, 2016 — 12:01 AM BST
An informal OPEC meeting next month is unlikely to deliver any agreement to limit production because several members including Iran are still pumping below capacity.

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are planning to hold talks next month on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum in Algeria, the group’s president Mohammed Al Sada said Monday. But the same obstacles that prevented an agreement on proposals to freeze output in April or fix a new production target in June are still there, according to UBS Group AG.

“We still haven’t reached the moment when OPEC members will agree to a production agreement, as Iran has not yet recovered its pre-sanction production levels,” Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS, said by e-mail. “Nigerian and Libyan oil output are also currently below capacity.”

Oil tumbled into a bear market last week, ending a recovery that saw prices almost double from a 12-year low in February. That increased the pressure on many OPEC member countries that are still unable to balance their budgets. Al Sada’s comments indicate the group is concerned by the renewed slide in prices, according to Robin Mills, chief executive officer of consultant Qamar Energy.

----Iran’s crude production increased by about a quarter since the start of the year to 3.6 million barrels a day in July, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. However, it has yet to fully recover the levels pumped before restrictions were imposed four years ago, according to the country’s Deputy Oil Minister Amir Hossein Zamaninia.
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German Industry Output Rises as Factories Shrug Off Brexit Woes

August 8, 2016 — 7:00 AM BST Updated on August 8, 2016 — 11:50 AM BST
German industrial production increased in June, signaling that Europe’s largest economy gained momentum ahead of the U.K.’s Brexit vote.
Production, adjusted for seasonal swings, rose 0.8 percent from the previous month, when it dropped a revised 0.9 percent, data from the Economy Ministry in Berlin showed on Monday. The reading, which is typically volatile, compared with a median estimate for a 0.7 percent gain in a Bloomberg survey. Output was up 0.5 percent from a year earlier.
“The muted intake of manufacturing orders speaks for a rather moderate upward development in the coming months,” the ministry said. “Manufacturers’ assessment of business conditions remains good.”
Siemens, Europe’s biggest engineering company, raised its forecast for full-year earnings last week after reporting a 6 percent increase in orders in the three months through June, and Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann has said there’s no indication that Britons’ vote to quit the European Union has changed prospects of a growth pick-up in the third quarter. Still, business confidence slipped in July and factory orders fell in June amid a slump in demand for investment goods from within the euro area.
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In EUSSR news, guess who managed to even beat Greece into last place. Why would any nation want to remain in a currency club like this?

Italy Ranks Last in Euro-Area Government Effectiveness: Chart

August 8, 2016 — 6:00 AM BST
Italy has the least effective government in the 19-nation euro area, while Finland’s is the most effective, according to World Bank data collected in 2014. The survey results measured perceptions of public services, civil service independence from political pressures, policy implementation and government credibility. The European Central Bank on Thursday included the World Bank’s effectiveness scale and other governance indicators in its economic bulletin.

In Asian news, an old dispute in the East China Sea is heating up again. Cui bono?
Tue Aug 9, 2016 12:44am EDT

Japan warns China of worsening ties over East China Sea dispute

Japan warned China on Tuesday that ties were "deteriorating markedly" over disputed East China Sea islets, and China's envoy in Tokyo reiterated Beijing's stance that the specks of land were its territory and called for talks to resolve the row.
Tensions between Asia's two largest economies have risen since Japan saw an increasing number of Chinese coastguard and other government ships sailing near the disputed islets, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, over the past few days.
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida called in Chinese ambassador Cheng Yonghua for the second time since Friday and told him that China was trying to change the status quo unilaterally, a Japanese foreign ministry statement said.
It also said Kishida told Cheng that the environment surrounding Sino-Japanese ties was deteriorating markedly.
Cheng said after the meeting that he told Kishida the islands were an integral part of China's territory and that the dispute should be resolved through diplomacy and dialogue.
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At the Comex silver depositories Monday final figures were: Registered 27.29 Moz, Eligible 125.02 Moz, Total 152.31 Moz. 

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Below, Brexit and the Barber of Sue-ville. How Princess Diana’s old law firm is attempting to end democracy in GB. I can only hope that they are as talentless and unsuccessful as when they attempted to boss American’s around over what they could and couldn’t do making Princess Diana souvenirs after her death.
''The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.''
Dick the Butcher in ''Henry VI,'' Part II.

How a Hairdresser’s Lawsuit Could Spell Trouble for Brexit

August 8, 2016 — 1:00 AM BST
In the hall of London’s Inner Temple, a grand dining chamber with stained-glass windows and coats of arms adorning the walls, 300 lawyers assembled to complain about Britain’s exit from the European Union.

"The world has effectively been turned upside down," said former attorney general Dominic Grieve. The campaign in favor of leaving was "the constitutional equivalent of crimes against humanity," remarked Richard Gordon, a barrister at Brick Court Chambers. When the speakers asked if anyone in the room had anything more positive to say, there was silence.

Like that audience at the Inner Temple last month, London’s legal establishment was overwhelmingly in favor of remaining within the EU. No one was surprised when a handful of legal claims emerged after the referendum to challenge the Brexit process. The question is, can they delay or even derail Britain’s departure from the bloc?

The lawsuits, filed on behalf of a hairdresser, a finance entrepreneur and others unwilling to be publicly identified, have been merged into a single claim that’s likely to end up before the U.K. Supreme Court this year. The claimants want the nation’s highest court to rule that it would be illegal to invoke Article 50, triggering the two-year countdown to Brexit, without first holding a vote in parliament.

While backers of Brexit have derided the effort as futile maneuvering, the implications may reach far beyond the oak-paneled rooms of London’s law chambers. The case could pit the power of the judiciary against the authority of the prime minister in a manner never seen before in Britain, according to more than a dozen lawyers and judges interviewed for this article.

“This will be one of the most important constitutional law cases ever decided," said Jeff King, a professor at University College London. Britain, unlike the U.S., doesn’t have a written constitution, but rather an accumulation of laws, customs and judicial decisions that date back centuries.

Among potential outcomes: a lengthy delay as legal challenges play out; the risk -- albeit slight -- of jail for government ministers should they ignore the court’s orders; and even a Parliament that’s forced to vote and ultimately rejects Brexit. It’s also possible the court will decide the government can invoke Article 50 whenever it chooses, with or without a vote.

 “The court takes this litigation very seriously and will move expeditiously,’’ Judge Brian Leveson said at a preliminary hearing on July 19. The matter is “of such constitutional importance it is difficult to see why’’ it won’t move quickly to the Supreme Court, he said.

Gina Miller, who runs an investment start-up, and hairdresser Deir Dos Santos were the only two claimants identified at the hearing. Santos’s lawyer, Dominic Chambers, has described him as an “ordinary guy.’’
Others who considered joining the suit were put off by racist and anti-Semitic abuse, Leveson was told.
Miller was undeterred. “I don’t shy away from what I think is right,’’ the 51-year-old said in an interview.
Her father was the attorney general of Guyana, a former British colony in South America, and she trained as a lawyer before starting SCM Private, an online investment manager.

On June 29, Miller gave a speech at London law firm Mishcon de Reya LLP about gender equality. When one of the partners, Kasra Nouroozi, approached her to talk, she guessed what it was about.

“I instinctively looked at them and said: ‘Article 50,’’’ she recalled. “I just said, ‘I will do it.’’’

----Lisa Tremble, a spokeswoman for Mishcon de Reya, declined to comment.

The law firm came under criticism for bringing the suit. Spiked, an online magazine focusing on politics and culture, organized a protest in front of Mishcon’s offices on July 7. “It’s shameful that a law firm thinks it can overrule the democratic spirit,’’ Spiked’s deputy editor, Tom Slater, told protesters waving “Invoke Article 50 NOW!’ banners.

“The Mishcon and the Deir Dos Santos actions are at most tactical, and at worst nonsense,’’ said Philip Young, a lawyer at London firm Cooke Young & Keidan. Parliament would respect the referendum result even if the matter came to a vote, he said.

Other legal experts say triggering Article 50 without an act of Parliament would be reckless. Negotiators would have just two years to hammer out new agreements with the EU before the rights of Britons abroad, or banks doing business on the continent, would disappear.
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A Dublin lawyer died in poverty and many barristers of the city subscribed to a fund for his funeral. The Lord Chief Justice of Orbury was asked to donate a shilling. "Only a shilling?" said the Justice, "Only a shilling to bury an attorney? Here's a guinea; go now and bury 20 more of them."

Solar  & Related Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards? DC? A quantum computer next?

Apple given all-clear to sell energy from solar farm

5 August 2016
Electronics giant Apple has been granted permission to sell energy generated at its $850m (£645m) solar farm in California.

Last year, the tech firm acquired a 2,900-acre power facility in Monterey County, giving it 130 megawatts of solar energy capacity.

Now it has the go-ahead to sell that energy into wholesale markets.

Apple said renewable energy generated at the site could power 60,000 California homes.

One expert says power generated from solar farms is not consistent.

Dr Niall Mac Dowell, a lecturer in energy and environmental technology at Imperial College London, told the BBC that "just because Apple has invested in that capacity does not mean they'll get the same level of energy from it."

There is a big difference between installing solar panels and generating electricity from them, he said.

"Today, on a sunny August afternoon in the UK, we are getting about 0% energy from solar power."
He added: "It's awesome that Apple is investing in renewable power when it can, but that doesn't mean it's about to go off-grid."

On Thursday, energy officials in Washington DC said Apple could sell its power at market-based rates.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission also noted that Apple owns a similar 20-megawatt facility in Nevada, as well as a 50-megawatt facility in Arizona.

Last year, Apple said the Monterey County site could supply enough electricity to power all its stores, offices, headquarters and a data centre.

James Court, the head of policy at the Renewable Energy Association, described Apple's investment as "a hugely positive step".

He told the BBC: "A decent-sized gas power station can produce between 200 and 400 megawatts, so
Apple's capacity is sizeable."

Apple's $850m investment in the Monterey County facility was announced last year as part of the corporation's bid to reduce its carbon footprint.

Other major tech firms have investments in renewable energy.

In June last year, Google purchased 236 megawatts of energy capacity from two wind farms in Sweden and Norway.

Then in February, Microsoft announced it was experimenting with underwater data centres to reduce the energy consumed when cooling the facility.

Mr Court expects energy self-sufficiency will become more commonplace across businesses in the future.
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The monthly Coppock Indicators finished July

DJIA: 18432  +03 Up NASDAQ:  5162 +10 Up. SP500: 2173 +01 Up.

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